


I (Don't)Like It

by Ann__O927



Category: The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 20:18:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20918000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ann__O927/pseuds/Ann__O927
Summary: It is a bit, for a lack of a better word, scary to be in love with Dallas Winston. It's even scarier when he loves you back.





	I (Don't)Like It

**Author's Note:**

> Life has been busy busy and I'm one girl on the go, there's not a lot I can do. But I stumbled across an unfinished fic of mine and decided to wrap it up on my phone at 1am. I've mentioned this before, but SE Hinton has very bland characters, relatable and likeable but one dimensional. This means that they're kind of a blank slate and fanfic writers can do anything they want with them, this is why I can read a story about Johnny and Dally falling in love in a healthy way while also reading about Dally beating the living daylights out of Johnny and proceeding to have sex with him while also reading about Johnny having crush on Dally but later falling in love with Randy(these are all fics I know and love and recommend). Essentially, though these are all different stories with drastically different portrayals of the character, they are all beautifully written, relevant, and fitting to SE Hinton's original characters-like there was any character there to begin with. So this is all about how a potential direction Johnny and Dally's relationship could go is a slightly toxic relationship where the love isn't one sided and not only one person is putting in all the effort per say but one partner is feeling considerably more drained than the other and the other's insecurities and traumas are interfering with their relationship and causing it to be unstable. Now, their relationship could go a completely other and more healthy direction, there are plenty fics that do that including my own, but I thought this would be interesting to see. Anyhoo, thank for you listening(???) to my tangent, if you did. Please enjoy my 1am trashheap.

You can’t really describe what it’s like to be with Dallas Winston. It’s not even an experience, it’s more of a feeling. A surreal emotion that you drown in every time he looks at you. It’s those little moments when your eyes meet and it’s like the entire universe is laid out in front of you, and suddenly you can see everything. It’s all there, in that crystal blue that consumes you. You see what you love, you see what you could do without. The things that make your neck and cheeks and fingers burn. But it’s not his fault, it never is, it’s what you have to help him through. It’s what he needs you for. 

And that’s what you like, that’s what you love actually. Those moments when he’s vulnerable. Like when he worked up the courage to confess, there was the color in his cheeks and the twitch in his hands and the itch behind his ear he couldn’t help but scratch. There was the way he caressed you so tenderly and carefully like you were about to break and then the way he whispered those words. And then he kissed you. Softly. Achingly. Desperately. Gentle but passionate and engrossing. And his hand tangled in your hair and your waist glued to his and you moved like waves in the ocean, your life began and ended so quickly. 

And you like when he stops hiding himself and isn't the reserved, bitter man you thought you knew all those years. Sometimes it comes out when he kisses you in that spot between your neck and shoulder, sometimes it comes out when he's sobbing and you have to find all the strength in your small body to keep him steady. It's not that you like it when he cries, but you like how he's not collapsing in on himself and keeping all those memories pent up inside of him, you like that he doesn't have that fire of destruction in his eyes. You'd rather have him slowly unraveling tear by tear besides you, shaking, instead of him out on the streets breaking whatever he needs to to stop himself from screaming.

And he does. He screams a lot. But you're alright with that.

Sometimes it's easy to convince yourself not to be afraid. You know how to stop yourself from looking like it, no shaking or quivering or eyes welling up with tears. And when you look brave it's not difficult to feel it. But a black hole rips in your chest whenever he has his moments, occasional and sporadic, never constant, never harmful. He'd never hurt you. But it's hard not to think that he could. You'd rather him cry because when he doesn't he's like this. An angry, catastrophic mess that has a bloodlust. He throws anything in sight and punches walls and he never aims for you, but sometimes he's so close you can't help but imagine it. And when he calms down he doesn't really calm down, he just sinks to the floor and hugs his knees and screams into nothingness. You know he feels guilty, so guilty he could basically kill himself, and you always have to touch him softly and whisper that he's not a bad person over and over again.

He doesn't believe you, you don't think he ever will.

And it's a little difficult but you do your best to never make it seem like he is. Even if you're so afraid you feel your heart jumping out of your chest or even if you're so heartbroken you feel like crying in front of him you never do. You just take it because you never want to hurt him. There's something about the way he handles pain that shakes you to your core, you can't bare it. You'd never want to inflict it.

So you just take it. You take all the wonderful things you love and the things you don't. Like the way he tosses your head back with a gentle tug and then kisses your neck little by little by little. How he's always looking for you to say what you like and how you feel and how he never hesitates to give you his own feedback. It's more than just the sex, but the sex is hard not to love. Not when you're eye to eye and suddenly you're not in an insignificant corner of the world anymore, you're surrounded by absolutely everything. And then there's the constant 'I love you, I love you, I love you' that he says before and that he says during and that he says after. Just in case you forget momentarily.

You love that.

What you don't love is when he pulls your hair a little too hard it almost makes you feel like he's looking to wrench it all out. You don't like it when his teeth sink into your skin instead of nibbling. You don't like how sharp his nails can feel and how sometimes his sounds are more like hard breaths that are cold and unfeeling. But that's only when he's angry or has a rough day. You never really like it when he's in that mood. He doesn't do anything to you but he barely talks and then he just expects and expects and expects. You know you can say no and he'll listen but you don't want to imagine the fall in his face that you'll see if you do. And on those days, the worst part of it is when you're in the moment and for a second you can forget about the little bit of pain that you feel because he's right there and you can still see the human in his eyes, and then he turns you over. And suddenly you're facing the pillow and you don't know what happens until you feel it and it's hardly ever good. But you don't want him to know that. So you muffle any whine or shriek or groan, and if it's too much to handle, you just bury your face into the mattress and trap it in the folds of your blanket.

He really does scare you when he's in pain. It's never about how he might hurt you, it's always been about how he might hurt himself. He hates himself in a way you don't even think is humanely possible. And he's told you over and over again the only good part about his life is you and that if anything ever happened to you that would be it. He doesn't forgive himself when it comes to you. If you ever complain he can't just apologize and get over it, it lingers over his head for days and days and becomes this weight on his back that drags him. So you can't say anything at all, not about the way he scares you when he screams and not about the drop in your stomach when he flips you over on the bed.

There's nothing you can do to make him see any good, and sometimes you just have to be that good in his life. That means crying in the bathroom and holding back tears and biting your tongue and trying not to have bad days. It's a lot to handle and sometimes you don't think you can make it, but then he smiles and pulls you on his lap and tells you he loves you over and over. If he ever found out about that you know he'd hate himself even more.

That's all he can talk about sometimes. On certain nights when you're both laying there in bed and it's too hard to keep the fear off of your face he says it like a chant or a mantra. "I'm such a fuck-up, man. I'm so fucked up, I'm sorry. I'm such a fuck-up, I'm so sorry."

"I love you so much, baby, I hate hurting you. I'm so fucked up, I'm so sorry."

"I don't get why you haven't left me yet, baby, Christ, I'm so fucked up."

It's hard to be insecure when he treats you like the only god he believes in. You still feel it, though. Helpless, useless, a nuisance to every breathing creature, especially on the days where nothing you do makes him happy. But, God, does he worship you. Sometimes you love that and sometimes you hate that and sometimes you know it really has nothing to do with you.

Sometimes you just know that you're the only thing he has in his life and you've got to be careful. Because that's the thing about Dallas Winston, he's delicate. A lot more delicate than anyone would care to believe. And he used to treat you like you were gonna break but now that's what you gotta do to him.

You used to hate that he'd act like that, like you were fragile. You liked him when he was all rough and reckless. But sometimes you wish he was still like that, especially in those moments when you're facing the mattress. 

But you love him more than you could ever explain or express. And he just loves you to death. You're so happy that that's what you can be confident in, the way he feels.

You wish you could fix him. And then there are the times when you realize that maybe you can't and you think that's okay, but you don't really know if it actually is. You don't know if that's actually good. It is a bit, for a lack of a better word, scary to be in love with Dallas Winston. It's even scarier when he loves you back. 

Maybe it's actually not okay, but you just don't know anymore.


End file.
